In recent cognitive research, there has been a shift from mental representation in individualstowards the interactional, testified by social cognitive neuroscience, machine learning, discourseanalysis, and so on. Aiming at bringing together researchers who engage in the trans-disciplinary study of cognitive phenomena, this conference intends to investigate the bi-directionality, that is, the mutual heuristic applicability of diverse (and possibly complementary)research topics and methodologies in the cognitive sciences.

While the application of methods used in cognitive linguistics and psychology to literary texts,for instance, has enriched our interpretations of literature â€“ e.g., Peter Stockwellâ€™s CognitivePoetics (London and New York: Routledge, 2002) â€“ how could cognitive phenomena reflected inliterature help to uncover similar manifestations and refine their study in more traditionalcognitive sciences such as linguistics and psychology? To what extent can techniques used incognitive approaches to linguistic and literary analysis be beneficial to studies in languageacquisition and teaching â€“ and how does the latter affect the former? How do different mappingprocesses â€“ for example, metaphors of embodiment in non-Western cultures â€“ contribute to ourunderstanding of seemingly universal metaphorical mappings? And how can applied cognitivelinguistics benefit from potential parallels in cross-cultural mappings?

We would like to encourage the submission of papers from scholars working in the fields oflinguistics, language acquisition and teaching, literary and cultural studies, anthropology,psychology, sociology, and others, that explore how cognitive approaches within thesedisciplines can enrich and illuminate one another.

Selected papers will be published in a peer-reviewed volume.

Organizers: Astrid LohÃ¶fer, Marcus Callies, and Wolfram R. Keller

Please send abstracts (as pdf-attachments) of no more than 300 words (excluding references) by1 August 2008 to Wolfram Keller (<kellerw_at_staff.uni-marburg.de>)